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Fani Willis Ordered to Turn Over Anti-Trump Collusion Records to Court

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Judicial Watch has announced that Georgia District Attorney Fani Willis was ordered to turn over 212 pages of records to a state court judge. Image: Public Domain. Bgd for illustration purposes
Judicial Watch has announced that Georgia District Attorney Fani Willis was ordered to turn over 212 pages of records to a state court judge. Image: Public Domain. Bgd for illustration purposes
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WASHINGTON, DC –  Judicial Watch has announced that Georgia District Attorney Fani Willis was ordered to turn over 212 pages of records to a state court judge. The court also ordered Willis to detail how the records were found and the reason for withholding them from the public. The records were belatedly found in response to a Judicial Watch request and lawsuit for communications with Special Counsel Jack Smith and the House January 6 Committee.

The court order was issued on March 7 in a Judicial Watch lawsuit filed after Willis falsely denied having any records responsive to Judicial Watch’s earlier Georgia Open Records Act (ORA) request for communications with Special Counsel Jack Smith’s office and/or the January 6 Committee (Judicial Watch Inc. v. Fani Willis et al. (No. 24-CV-002805)).

The order follows a February 28 hearing in which Willis’ lawyers admitted to finding the records after what is believed to be a fifth search of her office. The court orderreads as follows: 

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ORDER RE: IN CAMERA REVIEW OF RECORDS In August 2023, Plaintiff Judicial Watch Inc. submitted an open records request to Defendant District Attorney Fani Willis seeking “[a]ll documents and communications sent to, received from, or relating to Special Counsel Jack Smith” and “[a]ll documents and communication sent to or received from the United States House January 6th Committee.”1 Defendant claimed to have no responsive records. Doubting this, Plaintiff sued and has since secured a default judgment against Defendant, who, it turns out, does have responsive records. After several non-searches, one court order, and at least one actual search of unknown thoroughness, Defendant revised her answer to, in essence, “I do have records, but you can’t have them (except this one record you already had and gave me).”

Unsurprisingly unsatisfied with this post-adjudication response, Plaintiff on 17 December 2024 petitioned the Court for the appointment of a Special Master to (1) conduct her own search of Defendant’s files for responsive records and (2) review the documents Defendant has determined fall outside the ambit of the State’s Open Records Act (ORA), O.C.G.A. § 50-18-70 et seq. On 28 February 2025, the Court held a hearing on Plaintiff’s motion at which both sides presented argument and made various factual representations, to include an assertion that the universe of responsive records consists of 212 pages (some of which may be duplicative). From those presentations and representations — and a review of the parties’ pleadings — the Court rules as follows:

1) No Special Master will be appointed — for now.2) Defendant shall, through counsel, deliver to the Court within five business days of the entry of this Order all records Defendant has identified as being responsive to Plaintiff’s ORA request but which are being withheld pursuant to one or more of the exemptions set forth in O.C.G.A. § 50-18-72(a). These records should be Bates stamped for ease of reference.3) Along with the documents, Defendant shall provide a list indicating which documents arguably fall under which exemption(s).2 For any records for which an attorney-client privilege is being asserted, counsel shall also identify the attorney and the client.4) Defendant shall additionally provide, along with the documents, an affidavit, sworn out by someone in Defendant’s employ with direct personal knowledge, that includes the following:

a. A detailed description of the search that was conducted that yielded the 212 pages. This description should identify what was searched and how (e.g., manually versus electronically) and by whom.b. The search terms used to search e-mail accounts and, if not every e-mail account in the office was searched, the universe of accounts that were searched. (These accounts need not be identified by employee name, but should at least indicate employee role (e.g., Assistant DA #2, Administrative Assistant #3, etc.).)c. An answer to the question of whether cell phones were searched. If the answer is “no”, that should be explained. If the answer is “yes”, it should include a list of whose phones (again identifying them, for now, simply by employee role) and how the search was performed.

The Court will review all these submitted materials and determine if any are, despite Defendant’s claimed exemptions, subject to disclosure under the ORA. Should any of the submitted records be deemed disclosable, the Court will notify counsel for Defendant so that Defendant may file an ex parte pleading justifying the exemption. Any such pleadings will be filed under seal in this case, as will all the submitted materials.

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SO ORDERED this 7th day of March 2025.1 

Plaintiff’s request also extended to employees of Smith and the Committee. 2Defendant has asserted as bases for non-disclosure open investigation (subsection (a)(4)), attorney-client privilege (subsection (a)(41)), and work product (subsection (a)(42)).

“Fani Willis can’t be trusted. Every time we go back to court there are new excuses and new documents that she said never existed,” said Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton. 

Thanks to this lawsuit, Willis finally admitted to having records showing communications with the January 6 Committee but refused to release all but one document in response to the court order that found her in default. She cited a series of legal exemptions to justify the withholding of communications with the January 6 Committee. The only document she did release is one already-public letter to January 6 Committee Chairman Benny Thompson (D-MS). The court also awardedJudicial Watch $21,578 “attorney’s fees and costs.” (Willis’ operation made the payment to Judicial Watch 10 days after the court-ordered deadline.) 

Judicial Watch subsequently filed a motion, asking the court to conduct a private inspection of any records found.

Judicial Watch had argued:

Willis by her own admission conducted at least three searches before finding any responsive records not already supplied by [Judicial Watch]. She did not even bother to conduct a search until the Complaint was filed. Her records custodian says he does not know the Cellebrite [digital investigations] equipment he apparently had a hand in ordering can be used to search cell phone texts and other data…. Moreover, the custodian had no standard practice for conducting searches and keeps no records of the methods used in a given search.

Judicial Watch is assisted in the case by John Monroe of John Monroe Law in Georgia.

Judicial Watch has several Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuits on the lawfare targeting Trump:

In February 2024, the U.S. Department of Justice asked a federal court to allow the agency to keep secret the names of top staffers working in Special Counsel Jack Smith’s office that is targeting former President Donald Trump and other Americans.

(Before his appointment to investigate and prosecute Trump, Specia Counsel Jack Smith previously was at the center of several controversial issues, the IRS scandalamong them. In 2014, a Judicial Watch investigation revealed that top IRS officials had been in communication with Jack Smith’s then-Public Integrity Section about a plan to launch criminal investigations into conservative tax-exempt groups. Read more here.)

In January 2024, Judicial Watch filed lawsuit against Fulton County, Georgia, for records regarding the hiring of Nathan Wade as a special prosecutor by District Attorney Fani Willis. Wade was hired to pursue unprecedented criminal investigations and prosecutions against former President Trump and others over the 2020 election disputes.

In October 2023, Judicial Watch sued the DOJ for records and communications between the Office of U.S. Special Counsel Jack Smith and the Fulton County, Georgia, District Attorney’s office regarding requests/receipt of federal funding/assistance in the investigation of former President Trump and his 18 codefendants in the Fulton County indictment of August 14, 2023. To date, the DOJ is refusing to confirm or deny the existence of records, claiming that to do so would interfere with enforcement proceedings. Judicial Watch’s litigation challenging this is continuing.

Through the New York Freedom of Information Law, in July 2023, Judicial Watch received the engagement letter showing New York County District Attorney Alvin L. Bragg paid $900 per hour for partners and $500 per hour for associates to the Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher law firm for the purpose of suing Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH) in an effort to shut down the House Judiciary Committee’s oversight investigation into Bragg’s unprecedented indictment of former President Donald Trump.

In his book Rights and Freedoms in Peril Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton details a long chain of abuses officials and politicians have made against the American people and calls readers to battle for “the soul and survival of America.”

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